Tim Liardet is the author of seven collections of poetry. His third, Competing with the Piano Tuner (1998) was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation and longlisted for the Whitbread Poetry prize. His fifth, The Blood Chair (2006), won an Arts Council England Writer's Award and was shortlisted for the 2006 T.S. Eliot Prize. Liardet is currently Professor of Poetry at Bath Spa University and reviews for the guardian and elsewhere.